


Still a chance

by S_Horne



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Divorce, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 09:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21336013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Horne/pseuds/S_Horne
Summary: Divorce meant no more Steve. It meant that Tony had been such a shit husband that he had driven away the only man that had ever truly loved him. It would mean cold days, sleepless nights, quiet and empty rooms.Who would twirl Tony round in the kitchen whilst waiting for the kettle to boil? Who would drag him away from work and force him to eat and sleep?It would mean being alone.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 277





	Still a chance

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts taken from [this list](https://s-horne.tumblr.com/post/188339706259), chosen by an anon

Divorce had always been a scary word to Tony.

As a child, it had meant that his parents weren’t going to live together anymore, that his dad was going away and he wouldn’t see him much. It meant arguments and screamed accusations, tears and slammed doors. It had been a nightmare.

As an adult, it was hell.

Divorce as an adult meant no more Steve. It meant that Tony had been such a shit husband that he had driven away the only man that had ever truly loved him. It would mean cold days, sleepless nights, quiet and empty rooms.

Who would twirl Tony round in the kitchen whilst waiting for the kettle to boil? Who would drag him away from work and force him to eat and sleep?

It would mean being alone.

//

The meeting was dragging on. And on. And on.

Tony had stopped listening long ago, almost right at the beginning. He’d made up his mind as soon as Steve had presented him with papers. He would give Steve everything. Tony wasn’t going to fight. Steve could have it all. Without question.

The only thing Tony wanted was his ring. Both, if Steve would give his up. Which, Tony reasoned, he probably would, what with him having initiated the whole divorce thing.

“Mr Stark?”

Tony flinched at the sharp words from one of the lawyers in the room. Right. He was going to be a Stark again. No Rogers, not anymore. He cleared his throat. “Yes?”

“Are you okay, Sir? You haven’t said much.”

Of course he hadn’t. Tony wet his lips, trying to muster up his usual bravado. “Nothing much to say,” he said, tone falling a little flat. “Sounds like it’s all been decided.”

“We still need to–”

Tony stood up, pushing his chair away from the table with a hideous screech across the tiled floor. “Nope. Cover everything off on your own. Steve can have it all.” He turned to his lawyer, trying his hardest to ignore the way his voice had cracked on his husband’s name. Ex-husband’s name. “I’m going to find a decent cup of coffee. Call me when it’s done.”

//

He didn’t find a decent cup of coffee. He found a mediocre takeaway cup of tea, lukewarm and far too milky, but it gave him something to focus on as he sat in the reception area of the office building and tried to resist the urge to run.

Every time he blinked, all Tony could see was the way Steve’s hand looked without the shining silver ring Tony had put there. That and the expression on Steve’s face as Tony had stormed out of the meeting room, turning back for a split second and forgetting to school his features back into his usual mask of indifference.

“Hi.”

Tony startled so hard that he nearly fell off his chair. He looked up and swallowed. Though his heart was threatening to beat out of his chest, Tony did his best to keep it from his face. It didn’t matter, of course, because if there was one person in the world that could read Tony, it was Steve.

“Hi.” Tony took a sip of his tea and nearly gagged. Cold, cold, cold. “Meeting over?”

“Yeah.” Steve sat down next to Tony. “For now. There’s – we need to reschedule. You need to–”

“Just sign it,” Tony cut in quickly, harshly. “I’m not having another meeting.”

“Tony–”

“No.” It was a snap and Tony took a breath, trying to calm down. “Fuck, Steve, I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this so I’m not sitting in a meeting listening to you divide our entire life and tear my house apart. Just take whatever you want and sign it away.”

Forget the calm. Tony threw his cup away, drops of tea splashing back onto his hand and adding to his bad mood, and stormed towards the door. Forget the debrief with his lawyer and forget going back into that stupid fucking room and having to look at Steve’s damn hand without a ring on it for one more minute.

//

“I thought you wanted it.”

If anyone would ever ask why Tony shot out of his skin and spilt his coffee all over his hand, then Tony would have blamed the fact that he hadn’t slept in weeks. Not since Steve had presented him with papers and walked out of their house. Everything made him jump when he was alive because of caffeine alone.

“Then you never knew me at all,” Tony answered, reaching for a napkin and swiping angrily at his burnt hand. “Where are–”

“Outside.” Steve pulled out the chair on the other side of the table to Tony. “I asked them to give us a moment. I wanted to talk.”

Tony pushed his mug away from him, not trusting his shaking hands with a cup of hot coffee. He’d been in a bad mood since his lawyer had called yet another meeting between Steve and Tony and scheduled it for 9am. “Want to take even more from me? My bank account and heart not enough for you?”

Steve sighed and Tony hated the way that it made him feel. He no longer had the rights to cross the room and soothe Steve’s tense shoulders with soft touches and a gentle kiss. “I – you pulled away. You stopped coming to bed, stopped talking to me. What was I supposed to think?”

“You were supposed to think that you could _talk _to me!” Tony couldn’t hold it in anymore and he stood up, kicking his chair away and clenching his fists. “How long have we been married, Steve? And you suddenly thought–”

“You’ve never done this–”

“–we talk, Steve! That’s what we do–”

“–I wanted to speak about–”

“–you _left_ me.”

Steve fell silent. Tony’s chest heaved.

“You left me, Steve. You did the one thing you promised me that you never would. You walked out and I had nothing.”

There was a long quiet, nothing in the room but the two of them breathing heavily. They didn’t look away from each other.

“I thought you’d left me already,” Steve said finally. “It’s not an excuse, and I know that, but I – that’s it. I thought you were gone and didn’t want to tell me. I’d lost you and I didn’t know why. I gave you an out.”

“You gave yourself an out,” Tony answered quietly, bracketing his arms on the back of his chair and falling forward. He shook his head harshly, standing up and crossing the room towards the door.

“I’m sorry.”

The laugh that left Tony hurt his chest. It was bitter, self-deprecating. Not even slightly real. “Do you mean that, or are you just saying it because you think it’s what I want to hear?”

The silence answered Tony’s question better than any words ever could.

“Right. I’m going to get the lawyers in here. I want to get this over and done with.”

“Tony–”

“No.” Tony didn’t turn around, hand already on the door handle. “This was a bad idea. Anything else we say will be on record and with a lawyer present.”

////

“Do you love me?”

Tony kept his eyes on the wall in front of him. There’d been a picture of their wedding day there until about four days ago. He was going to have to redecorate if he wasn’t going to put anything else up; there was a horrible faded mark in the paint.

It felt strange to have Steve back in their house, back where it had all started. He looked far too uncomfortable in his own house, but he was there. He was there with the couch where Tony had started to sleep more and more, the fireplace that they’d curled up in front of at the start of their relationship, and the radio that had started to fill the air more than their conversations towards the end.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Tony said darkly. What sort of a question was that anyway? Of course he loved Steve.

Tony wanted to scream out his answer, to yell and to cry and to get down on his knees. Of course he still loved his husband. Without Steve, he had nothing. He _was _nothing. They were a team, weren’t they? There wasn’t one without the other.

“This wasn’t my idea, after all.”

“Of course I love you.”

It was as though the world stopped turning with Steve’s hushed words. The entire room shrank down, white noise rushing in Tony’s ears. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting Steve to say, but it hadn’t been that.

“I never stopped loving you, Tony. I will never stop loving you. None of this was ever about that, I swear. It was – I don’t know what it was. I wanted you to have the freedom, wanted you to be able to–”

“Yes.”

Steve stopped talking when Tony cut across him. God, when had they gotten so bad at communication? What had broken between them, or when?

It felt as though they’d been living separate lives, each heading down paths that took them away from each other instead of them walking side by side.

“Yes, I love you, you damned idiot.” Tony sniffed, eyes focused on the stupid mark on the wall. “I didn’t want you to go. Never.”

“Then why – why did you make me think…”

Tony let out a watery chuckle, closing his eyes and sinking into the armchair. What a fucking mess. “I don’t know why I pulled away.”

It would have been easy to lie, to pin the blame on Steve and laugh the whole thing off. But a lie wouldn’t put Steve’s ring back on his finger. “We took on new clients and I had to focus on keeping the transitions running smoothly. I was stressed with that and your promotion made you tired. The whole adoption–”

Tony cut himself off with a sharp inhale and threw his head back. “Well. You were there when it fell through. I guess I thought me staying in the office longer and longer was making things easier. Stopping us from snapping at each other at home.”

“Except you were never at home,” Steve said, voice soft but not exactly gentle. “I’d sit up and wait for you only to find a message from whatever assistant you had that week telling me that you’d booked another meeting and I wouldn’t be seeing you until the next day. It felt like a message of its own, in the end.”

Tony wanted to protest and to say that it hadn’t been, but the truth was that he didn’t know if he could. It might well have been. His subconscious might have noticed the wedge between them long before he ever did, his self-preservation kicking in to stop his heart from crumbling right in front of him.

“I’m home now,” he said instead. It didn’t seem like much, but it was all he had left. It had to work. Because it was true. “If you want me to be.”

“Of course I do. I thought you wanted this.”

“Never.”

There wasn’t much else that Tony could think of to say. There were no doubt a hundred things that he needed to say and a thousand more that he needed go hear, but his mind had gone blank. There was only one that he needed to get out and one thing that he wanted in return.

“I didn’t either,” Steve said into the room and Tony felt his eyes on the side of his head. “I only want you. And you to want me.”

“So,” Tony started, biting the bullet and reaching out. He finally looked over at Steve, knowing in his heart exactly what he wanted. “Are you going to tell those lawyers to fuck off because you’re coming home, or should I?”

**Author's Note:**

> Come and throw me a prompt on [tumblr](https://s-horne.tumblr.com/) if you want x


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